Much to swallow in new public service act

Special Minister of State Gary Gray comments on the salaries of Federal Members of Parliament during a news conference at Parliament House Canberra on Thursday 15 December 2011.
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen/Fairfax

Governor-General
Quentin Bryce
, officially proclaimed last Thursday that the biggest legislative overhaul of the Australian Public Service (APS) in 14 years would take effect on July 1.

The Public Service Amendment Act 2013 passed both houses of Parliament in February but had no starting date.

Public Service Minister
Gary Gray
has also tabled a new Public Service Regulation 2013 (No. 1) and a fresh set of Australian Public Service Commissioner’s directions which flesh out the amendments.

As previously reported, the act tightens the process for hiring and firing department secretaries, who will also face more scrutiny with annual performance reviews. It also upgrades the role of the commissioner,
Steve Sedgwick
, rewrites the public service values, tightens whistleblower protections and more.

The new regulation and directions are subordinate legislation and are disallowable legislative instruments, with 15 days to be considered by each ­chamber.

The likelihood of anyone arcing up and mustering the numbers to disallow them is approximately zero, since the act passed with bipartisan support.

Most politicians won’t even notice them.

And, as is usual with the public ­service, implementation will mostly take place behind the scenes while all eyes are focused on the more public political circus.

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But there’s plenty in the new regulation and directions worth examining.

Importantly, the directions expand on the act’s simplified set of five public service values by adding no fewer than 42 requirements. Gulp!

You’ll remember that tThe original reform blueprint, chaired by the ­previous secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,
Terry Moran
, was hot to trot on streamlining the 15 values in the Public Service Act 1999.

So, after a lot of consultation, the Australian Public Service Commission came up with just the five, along with a set of seven employment principles (the latter including that bastion of the Westminster system, the “merit ­principle").

Indeed, in a statement on February 7 when the legislation passed the Senate, Mr Gray said, “The bill also introduces a clearer, shorter statement of the APS values."

So it did, and here they are: committed to service, ethical, respectful, accountable, and impartial.

Move them around a bit and up comes a sparkling new acronym, ICARE.

In the act, each is expanded in a simple statement. For example, under “committed to service" the act says, “The APS is professional, objective, innovative and efficient, and works collaboratively to achieve the best results for the Australian community and the government."

But now, under the new directions, each of the five has magically gained a swath of extra requirements. That’s a lot more than a simple acronym to swallow. For example, “committed to service" (perhaps the most difficult to define) has acquired 12 requirements, including: “engaging effectively with the community and working actively to provide responsive, client-focused service delivery; providing appropriate information to clients and the community about rights and entitlements, and the process for gaining access to them; ensuring that decisions and interactions with clients are objective and impartial, and in accordance with government policy; encouraging innovative thought and supporting innovative solutions", and more.

The vexed word “responsive" that caused trouble during the children overboard affair, and was knocked out of the five headline values, reappears twice under “committed to service", most importantly as “being responsive to ministers (taking account of resource and time constraints), including being knowledgeable about the government’s policies and understanding the relevant issues and options, the government’s objectives and the environment in which it operates".

Of course, it is true that the commissioner’s directions with the 1999 act also expanded at length on the then 15 values. And the new ones are written more clearly. But the five new values were supposed to be about being simple, streamlined and easy to remember.

It would be a pity if they became bogged down in another verbal quagmire.

Another important amendment that is fleshed out in the directions is the power to pursue former public servants for breaches of the code of conduct, including for having provided false information when applying for their jobs (such as failing to mention a prior criminal record).

At present, public servants facing allegations of breaches can simply resign, whereupon an investigation can’t start or, if it has, it must cease. The
Godwin Grech
case is a prime example.

This loophole has long enabled staff to leave with a clean record and therefore able to apply for a job in another agency with no hint of past troubles.

This will change on July 1, with provisos. Reasonable steps must be taken to inform former employees of the allegations and give them a reasonable opportunity to respond.

But if a breach is found, a written record has to be made, effectively closing that particular revolving door.

That’s just a taste, but there is plenty more bedtime reading in the subordinate legislation for public servants needing to know what hoops to jump through from July 1.